Dr. W. L. H. Duckworth

Abstract

THE election of Dr. Wynfrid Laurence Henry Duckworth to be Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, which was announced on May 28, is a well-deserved recognition of a devotion to the service of his College and University which is well-nigh lifelong. Dr. Duckworth, who is reader in anatomy, went to the University as a scholar of Jesus College, after receiving his earlier education in Birkenhead and at Dinan, Brittany. He graduated with first-class honours in both parts of the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1892–93, and during 1898–1920 was University lecturer in physical anthropology. His laboratory demonstrations and organization and arrangement of the museum specimens which came within his province contributed markedly to placing the Cambridge school in a unique position in anthropological studies; while so long ago as 1902, Dr. Duckworth's merit as an original thinker and teacher in anthropology were widely recognized on the publication of his two books “Morphology and Anthropology” and “Studies from the Anthropological Laboratory” (Cambridge). In the same year Dr. Duckworth was invited by a committee of the British Association to join the archaeological expedition then excavating in Crete, for the purpose of investigating the racial characters of the ancient and modern inhabitants of the island. The report which he eventually produced is still of standard authority on this question. Dr. Duckworth, who was born on June 5, 1870, represented his University on the General Medical Council during 1923-26.